Tuesday 2 May 2017

Dyeing experiments and a bit of patchwork

1 Dandelion, silk noil, silk and wool mix yarn

2 Cushion, old linen and hand stitch

3 Silk noil, from left wool, silk, wool and silk mix yarns

4 Silk noil, from left wool, wool and silk mix, silk yarn

5 Silk noil, from left wool, silk and wool mix, silk yarn
Dandelion dyed in an aluminium saucepan, very pretty pale yellow, if these had been fresh they may have dyed darker but I had collected them over several days.

Images 3, 4, 5, are all experiments using Logwood powder, a little goes a long way so I still have loads left. I probably wouldn't buy it again as I understand that the whole tree has to be cut down to obtain the dye but it does yield some lovely colours. Apparently it is slightly fugitive as well. All cooked in a stainless steel pan.

3 All of these had been previously dyed with rust and bark, the wool yarn on the left being the resulting colour, the rest were over dyed with the logwood and came out these lovely blues.

4 Logwood cooked for an hour and then left overnight in the pan, love these colours.

5 Using the left over dye with copper added, supposed to bring out the blues which it sort of has, it turned the dye into a very nasty looking soup.

I will have another go soon to try and get some lighter fresher colours.


4 comments:

  1. Pretty pillow. Loving the blue, purple, and lilac dye hues!

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  2. they are so soothing...soft, full of Ease....

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  3. Lovely pillow. 😊 I too have had same issues with the sustainability of logwood and have a packet in the cupboard that I have only used once so far. Some research I have done has indicated that the tree can be coppiced and dye produced from the prunings. Also, the trees are not endangered. ( Yet) but I don't think I would buy more once this packet is used, unless I can source a reliable supplier of the coppiced kind. I mostly want to concentrate on local plants (she said with her indigo hands!). But the purple of logwood is beautifully seductive. 😎 Though endangered or not, I don't like the idea of a tree dyeing just for me to have some purple cloth! I am currently solar dyeing some Dandelion. I put a pinch of alum in and it's gone pale green. xx sorry for the rambling comment xx

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    1. I love rambling comments, I am also mainly concentrating on locally available plant material but was getting slightly tired of yellows, greens and browns.
      Solar dyeing, you are optimistic! By the way the copper was old copper piping, not anything I had bought. Purple carrot gives similar colours though I have only used that for eco printing so far. I am also having a lot of trouble getting the seed to germinate.

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